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I think the greatest shocks will come when we reach the inevitable stage of negative population growth. Things are only worth what you can sell them for. What happens to even tangible assets like a home or a business or a farm when we suddenly have more homes than people, more malls than people to shop in them, more restaurants than people to eat in them, more Wal-Mart's than employees to work in them (let alone people to shop in them), etc...?

Is it possible that from this perspective even capitalism itself has been merely a Ponzi like illusion fueled by what once seemed as if it would be never ending population growth? I.E. ever more people endlessly needing to consume ever more stuff. Can capitalism survive in a world of declining population growth? I say it can, but not in a society fueled by a currency that by its nature has to endlessly inflate in volume and deflate in value.